This composition depicting a naked boy with chubby cheeks, with a jug in his right hand and a cup in his left is relatively well-known among scholars and has already been analysed in some depth. Nevertheless, it is difficult to determine the date and place of its origin with any degree of certainty. The work shows a clear affinity with two sculptures of putti with bunches of grapes, one of which, identified as a work by François Duquesnoy, was once housed in the collections of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin; the other—in the collections of Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich, is considered to be a work by a follower of Duquesnoy.
In turn, the authors of the Christies’ catalogue—where in 2006 a pair of figures was put to auction: a putto holding a bunch of grapes and a putto with a jug and cup (identical to the sculpture in the Ciechanowiecki Foundation)—while admitting that Duquesnoy was famous for works of this type, did not find arguments to attribute the sculptures to him and ultimately defined them as having been made in north Italy, probably in Venice. A similar situation occurred on the antiques market in London: a figure on sale showing a child filling a cup, nearly identical to the one under discussion (a difference being the absence of a wreath on his head) was defined as being by the workshop of Niccolo Tribolo (1500–50), a pupil of Jacopo Sansovino.
Artur Badach believes the proportions of the figures, the children’s plump bodies and their poses resemble more Flemish than Italian bronzes and cannot, therefore, completely rule out the possible impact of Duquesnoy’s art.